Mykl.biz
Consulting Technologist • Translating Geekery into plain English • Inciting electrons to do your bidding • Have laptops, will travel! • Please contact me via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Today@Mykl.biz
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How do I download BitTorrents?
BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol, which is to say, it works by organizing your computer and others to share the workload of hosting and moving files around the Internet.
To start with, you’ll need a BitTorrent client application to run on your computer. I use the well regarded Transmission for Mac. I hear good things about uTorrent for Windows.
If you don’t already know where to find the torrents (items) you want to download, a popular clearing house is the infamous anti-copyright site The Pirate Bay. Here you’ll find an overwhelming wealth of items, some legal, many pirated, some infected with viruses (primarily a concern for you Windows users). FYI, The Pirate Bay makes money for it’s operating expenses by selling advertising on their site; most of this advertising is porn.
(Evidently, some of the same people who will steal copyrighted material will pay for web porn. There’s some kind of business lesson in that seeming contradiction.)
You want to select torrents that have lots of active peers (aka seeders). Generally, the more computers there are lifting this load, the faster and more reliably your downloads will proceed.
To use BitTorrent effectively, you need to leave your client application up and running, day and night, in the background on a computer. This is a good use for an older computer that might otherwise be collecting dust, as a faster computer won’t help much. The bottleneck will be the plodding peer-to-peer file sharing network, transferring your selected torrents just a few bits at a time, over a period of hours or days or weeks.
I leave it your good judgement to do the right thing, when it comes to acquiring the intellectual work of others. If you’re looking to use BitTorrent to download free media (be it software or music or videos), know that (1) finding the exact items you want can be time consuming, (2) you won’t be sure of their quality or problems, until after you’ve downloaded it, (3) downloading large torrents (like expensive software install discs and high definition videos) can takes weeks, or sometimes won’t finish at all, and (4) you’ll need one (or more) large hard drives, if you download a lot of stuff. At this stage in the evolution of Internet speeds and technology, it is often faster and more reliable to purchase large software packages and rent videos on discs. Netflix will deliver a DVD to my door faster than i can download it via BitTorrent.
I don’t mean to suggest that all uses of BitTorrent are stealing. The technology itself is neutral; the protocol could care less what it’s used for. Because it’s an effective tool, many people employ it for legitimate purposes. For example, the excellent and free application Miro (available for Windows, Macs, and Linux) will helps you to find and download a wide variety of legitimate videos (and other media) from companies and individuals who are using the peer-to-peer Internet to distribute their media directly to you, cutting out the middle men (TV networks, iTunes, Amazon
If you have more questions about BitTorrent, come ask me about it on Twitter.
“Good blogs … occasionally vex readers with the degree to which the blogger’s obsession will inevitably diverge from the reader’s. If this isn’t happening every few weeks, the blogger is either bored, half-assing, or taking new medication.”
“Hell, there are no rules here — we’re trying to accomplish something.”
if you're not buying an iPhone
Following are some quick and dirty overviews, facts and links hastily gathered for a friend who (1) needs a new smart phone, (2) might benefit from an iPhone, but (3) is compelled to use Verizon Wireless, because only their network offers coverage where she works and lives. This is by no means exhaustively, nor even adequately, researched. But it’s a starting place.
All of these devices come with very little memory, usually 64 megabytes, compared to 8-16 gigabytes (aka 8000-16,000 megabytes) on the iPhone! So, to store anything more than some phone numbers and a few photos on these phones, you’ll also need to buy a microSD memory card (1-8 GB sizes available). Amazon has a SanDisk 8GB microSDHC Card
All these devices have wireless Bluetooth capabilities, though each may support slightly different Bluetooth features (known as “profiles”).
I will post the phones one at a time, below.
(FYI the following product photos all come from Amazon.com
Verizon Wireless XV6800
pros:
- qwerty keyboard
- web browser
- edit Word & Excel
- view PowerPoint & PDF
- Missing Sync for Windows Mobile ($40) will sync to Mac (Address Book, iCal, iPhone, iTunes)
- WiFi
- camera
cons:
- $295 from Amazon.com
- Windows Mobile designed by Microsoft
- not an iPhone
- no GPS
- call quality
reviews:
Blackberry 8830 World Edition
pros:
- $150 from VerzionWireless.com
- qwerty keyboard
- good reputation for interface
- sophisticated email integration & services
-
Missing Sync for BlackBerry ($40) will sync to Mac (Address Book, iCal, iPhone, iTunes)
- GPS
- potentially funtions overseas
cons:
- mediocre web browser
- no camera
- no touchscreen
- no stereo headphone option
fyi:
- doesn’t try to be an iPhone
reviews:
Blackberry Curve 8330
pros: 
- $100 from VerizonWireless.com
- qwerty keyboard
- web browser
- good reputation for interface
- sophisticated email integration & services
-
Missing Sync for BlackBerry ($40) will sync to Mac (Address Book, iCal, iPhone, iTunes)
- GPS
- camera
- good battery life
cons:
- no touchscreen
- mediocre IM
fyi:
- doesn’t try to be an iPhone
reviews:
LG Dare
pros: 
- 3” touchscreen
- web browser
- good camera
- GPS
- touchscreen
cons:
- $200 from Amazon.com
or VerizonWireless.com
- no keyboard
- no keypad
- not an iPhone
- does not sync contacts or calendar w/ Mac
- Mobile Email is a joke
reviews:
LG Voyager
I wrote about this phone back when I decided to buy one for myself.
pros: 
- $100.00 from VerizonWireless.com.
- qwerty keyboard
- web browser
- good camera
- GPS
- touchscreen
- call quality
cons:
- not an iPhone
- does not sync contacts or calendar w/ Mac
- Mobile Email is a joke
fyi:
- a new model is coming soon.
- this is the phone i own.
- i bookmarked many reviews and other info about this phone.
“Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.”
my full portable office set up on a small table
pocket-size WiFi for $60
I always carry one of these tiny WiFi routers with me when I travel. Plug it into an existing high-speed Internet connection or local network, and you’ve got a nearly instant wireless network. Like most Apple products, you don’t need to be a tech geek to setup the AirPort Express Base Station 802.11b/g, using the AirPort Utility software that comes with it. Both this software and the router work with both Macintosh and Windows computers.
This is a good price from MacMall (probably won’t last long) for a discontinued model. This model is compatible with the WiFi-B and WiFi-G standards. (In geek parlance, these are called 802.11b and 802.11g. Catchy moniker, huh? You can see why the marketing types invented the name “WiFi” instead.) This means it will work with virtually any WiFi-enabled computer (or any other device compatible with either the B, G or N versions of WiFi), but it will not work at the faster speeds and longer ranges which are possible with WiFi-N devices. However, if you aren’t actually using a WiFi-N device, there’s little reason to spend the extra $40 for the latest AirPort Express Base Station 802.11n. (In fact, if you have even one B or G device on a WiFi-N network, every device will be limited to the slower speed; lowest common denominator rules with WiFi.)
Oh, and these make a perfectly good router in a small home, for many folks, especially if you only have one computer, or all your computers use WiFi (none need an Ethernet connection). Or it can be used as second router, to extend the reach and features of another AirPort Base Station. I’ve written in more detail about this in the past. But today, if you’re one of those folks that have seen me on the road and envied my “portable network”, now is a good time to get your own, on the cheap.